


The Synod Bulletin, 4E 200, First Seed

by jottingprosaist (jane_potter)



Series: The Wheel Turns [5]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Academia, Epistolary, Gen, Pre-Canon, Prequel, Studious Dragonborn attends the College of Winterhold; engages in academia; slapfights ensue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-31 08:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8571796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_potter/pseuds/jottingprosaist
Summary: In all my years as a member of the Mages Guild and more recently as Grand Chair of Destruction in the Synod, I have never seen such an unworthy piece of writing cross my desk as the essay published by Lleros Ulawayn and Colette Marence last month. I am, in fact, shocked that the editor and publisher of our bulletin granted this so-called “essay” consideration for more than a moment of incredulous laughter. Such content may well be acceptable by the standards of the College of Winterhold, whence Ulawayn and Marence hail, but I had thought that the Synod had far higher standards. Have my colleagues in the School of Restoration truly so little to work on these days that the imbecilic ramblings of a pair of Skyrim hedgewitches command their attention?





	

**“A Response to Ulawayn and Marence (4E 200)”  
**

>  
> 
> In all my years as a member of the Mages Guild and more recently as Grand Chair of Destruction in the Synod, I have never seen such an unworthy piece of writing cross my desk as the essay published by Lleros Ulawayn and Colette Marence last month. I am, in fact, shocked that the editor and publisher of our bulletin granted this so-called “essay” consideration for more than a moment of incredulous laughter. Such content may well be acceptable by the standards of the College of Winterhold, whence Ulawayn and Marence hail, but I had thought that the Synod had far higher standards. Have my colleagues in the School of Restoration truly so little to work on these days that the imbecilic ramblings of a pair of Skyrim hedgewitches command their attention?
> 
> (Well, I say hedgewitch ** _es_** , but personal communication with Arch-Mage Savos Aren of the College has informed me that the bulk of the work on this essay was Ulawayn’s, from conception of the research project through execution and summary. Marence apparently attached her name to the essay in hopes that her seniority would make publication by the Synod more likely. Her attempt to assist her student through the halls of academia, however commendable in general, does not in this specific instance bode well for her continuing credibility and good standing with the Synod.)
> 
> For those who had the wisdom not to suffer beyond the first page of Ulawayn’s essay, its contents were thus: a sentimental but utterly useless supplication for the Empire’s healers, the School of Restoration, the Synod-- indeed, magical researchers as a whole-- to dilute our vast and carefully honed body of knowledge so that it may be more easily digestible by the uneducated and even _unmagical_ masses. Ulawayn asserts that the precise language and rigorous methodology of Restoration-focused alchemy is “alienating” to the non-magical public, and contributes to general disfavour of magic and mages. His point, I believe, is an implication that this alienation should be a considerable cause for concern to we mages-- though I confess the _actual_  result of his words was to evoke a long and sorely needed laugh. In remedy, he advocates more widespread use of the simplistic Akeeshus Order of alchemical ingredients, rather than the experimentally-derived Formulae Magnitudinous developed by Stringero Lexalius and employed by academics since the Second Era.
> 
> To prove the “pressing necessity” of this academic enfeeblement, Ulawayn provides as “evidence” a small and frankly baffling test he conducted on the Nords of Winterhold-- the town, that is, not the College. He distributed to the populace many copies of a slightly earlier work of his own, “Hearthside Healing Alchemy” (4E 199). (This text, I must mention, was written as part of Ulawayn’s Adept-level Restoration examinations. My regard for Marence and for the College’s standards sinks lower and lower.) By his own admission it required bribing, begging, and “a couple of bets made over mead” to make the local Nords accept copies of his book. In the following weeks Ulawayn further pressed the local populace, through conversation and more application of mead, to read the book, attempt its recipes, and generally _learn_. Eight months after the initial distribution of the book, Ulawayn and Marence conducted what they call an “informal and highly inconspicuous survey” of opinion among the local Nords-- namely, as to whether their opinion of the School of Restoration, the College, alchemy, mages, and magic in general had been improved.
> 
> Ulawayn reports his experiment’s results in the form of quotations from these surreptitious interviews. While such writing may be of some small interest to the linguistic scholar or armchair traveller seeking the provincial flavour of Skyrim’s remotest hinterlands, it has no discernible value as magical research. Ulawayn opines that the changes in public opinion were a “small but remarkable success, considering the troubled situation of magic in Skyrim and in Winterhold,” but I can see no such positivity in the feedback he records. Indeed, I marvel that Ulawayn decided such grudging admissions as, “Hope you don’t plan on getting this [her copy of “Hearthside Healing Alchemy”] back,” and “It [alchemy] ain’t so bad as long as my girl keeps getting better, I suppose,” to be assessments of his work that he would want to _publish_.
> 
> The greatest conclusion I draw from this essay is that Ulawayn seems to view the fact that magical learning demands immense skill and effort as a _fault_  rather than a normal and necessary feature. He professes that Restoration is his vocation, yet seems personally offended by the fact that magic is mastered by very few worthy disciples, that the hard-won fruits of our labours are not broadly accessible to all, that we do not open our doors and discussions to every simpleton with an opinion. He insists that we must lower ourselves to the level of the simplest Nordic peasant with a hearth and a cauldron-- “or become irrelevant as well as despised,” in his own words. _How_ , I ask, can someone who claims to be a mage insult his own colleagues and calling in such a way? Why does Ulawayn even insist on pursuing magical education at all if he finds the whole of our society so objectionable?
> 
> Having now demonstrated the appalling ignorance and academic unfitness of Ulawayn’s essay, I expect that I shall not be troubled again by any further publications of his writing, or indeed discussion of his ideas. Except, perhaps, as illustration to aspiring Synod mages of how to destroy one’s career as thoroughly and publicly as possible.
> 
> \--Patrucius Portulo, Grand Chair of the School of Destruction of the Imperial Synod
> 
>  

* * *

 

**“A Response to ‘A Response to Ulawayn and Marence (4E 200)’”  
**

>  
> 
> I write largely to express my astonishment at being so noticed by Grand Chair Patrucius Portulo in First Seed’s edition of the Synod bulletin. My understanding was that, as his work has always been exclusively focused in the School of Destruction, Portulo would not wish to remark on developments in the School of Restoration... yet still he granted my work his attention! One can only imagine my reaction to being scrutinized by one such as Portulo. His unprecedented rise from mere Magician of the Mages Guild to a Grand Chair of the Synod-- a truly incredible re-shaping of his fortunes during the fallout of the Guild’s dissolution-- has long been the subject of much remark by we at the College of Winterhold.
> 
> I graciously thank Portulo for the time and effort he took to criticize my work. In writing my essay, I focused on reporting the social climate of Skyrim and particularly of Winterhold in regards to mages; on detailing the method of my experiment; and on reporting the results of this experiment. I assumed that reporting the results verbatim, with my own commentary to bridge cultural and linguistic barriers, would sufficiently demonstrate the success of my work. However, I recognize now that my report was not at all comprehensible to the esteemed academics of the Imperial Synod. I had especially not considered the opinions of collegiate battlemages on the conduct and social situations of lay alchemists, journeyman healers, and rural mages of all Schools, whom my essay originally concerned. Be sure that I have revised my estimation of how valuable is the perspective of the School of Destruction in all things!
> 
> My greatest mistake, surely, was employing subtext in my essay. I foolishly assumed that my intent and implications would be clear to readers. However, since Portulo was forced to so laboriously dissect my essay’s underlying message,  _and_ the bulletin’s editors deemed it necessary to publish this dissection for the edification of the entire Synod, I see that I must have been mistaken.
> 
> I most sincerely congratulate Portulo on his accurate assay of my views. He has explained my beliefs about the public opinion of mages and the state of magical academia as a whole-- and he did so in words far more blunt than I ever imagined might be published in the Synod bulletin! I suppose I may nurture some small pride that I was at least able to communicate _that_  message clearly, even if the rest of my work was evidently incomprehensible to Portulo.
> 
> \--Lleros Ulawayn, Adept of the School of Restoration, College of Winterhold
> 
>  

* * *

 

Eleenah,

> I know you have a policy of not publishing the “Response to a Response to” etc in the bulletin, but if you make an exception for this one, I’ll let you have all my time in the Illusion Construct lab until Midyear.

\--Catrinne


End file.
